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Thursday, April 30, 2015

White House Creates “Hostage Czar”?

When all else fails due to WH incompetency and ignorance, Create “American Version Of Russian Czar!” Russians and Putin should be laughing by now. They got rid of their Czar in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917! Yet we resurrected the Czar because no one knows how to negotiate a minor hostage situation here or abroad.

Unbelievable!As someone who had dealt with hundreds of hostages all over the world including: the USA [Hanafi Muslims Washington D.C]; Uganda [Idi Amin]; Colombia [FARC]; and in the Middle East [PLO; Habash; Abu Nidal]—it was very easy for me to coordinate all my activities with the FBI, CIA, MI, SOF, Air Force, Navy, State Department, DOD, Metropolitan Police Dept [Wash DC- Police Chief Cullinane] and even the White House [Dr Peter Bourne and others]. I do not claim anything more than the ability to take calculated risks when presented with information from all sources of intelligence ranging from sophisticated NSA sweeping ELINT/SIGINT and HUMINT from the CIA, MI, local police forces, etc.

Once I had information, I would talk to the families of the hostage when it was necessary. Very often, I assigned competent Foreign Service Officers, CIA operatives and even military or police officials to deal effectively with the respective families that were involved in the hostage negotiations.

Now the WH is spewing nonsensical palaver concerning payments to so-called self-designated terrorist groups. Since I was one of the originators of the presently completely misunderstood state policy of ‘no payment for hostages’, I can assure you that I had a successful rate of recovery because I did whatever it took to get those hostages out of harm’s way. Whether it was money or media attention, I was in the business of negotiating with terrorists along the lines of whatever currency they or I insisted upon. That point is crucial. The key to a successful hostage rescue is rarely to go in with kinetic action and play Jack Ryan on steroids [sorry Tom Clancy].

A terrorist situations as in Washington DC in the late 1970’s involved an intricate analysis by the Washington DC police and the successful use of three very brave Muslim Ambassadors –Gen Yaqub Kahn [Pakistan]; Adeshir Zahedi [Iran]; Amb Ghorbal [Egypt] and a very brave police chief named Cullinane. Eventually President Carter’s orders to ‘stand down’ were refused and the 150 plus hostages in three different buildings were safely released thanks to the brave efforts of everyone. There was no czar or czarina in any position. There was Earl Silbert, intrepid lawyer, who gave me legal guidance before, during and after the event. There were the brave bureaucrats of the Washington DC government and the senior administration officials who provided me and my team cover from the prying media which I eventually terminated [there was no First Amendment Right to incite a hostage siege—I argued correctly].

The media, especially one correspondent from the ABC, was upset that he and the other media personnel were not allowed to cover the hostage siege. I told him and the media subsequently that they would not be allowed to ‘intercede’ as long as I was running a crisis nor would they interview anyone related to the crisis. Not during; nor after.

I was fortunate that the Washington DC judge at the time had ordered at my request a ‘gag ruling’ which meant that no one was allowed to talk about it after the episode.

The past is the past but nothing has changed. Terrorism as I have noted before has become a major business on both sides of the financial aisle. Terrorists around the world have commoditized hostages in terms of dollars and cents. These so-called Security Experts have made a fortune servicing the desperate families with all types of false promises; as well as providing Hollywood with spurious hostage situations and outcomes. Let’s not forget the new Czar position with a salary at the taxpayers expense.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Baltimore Flares UP Once Again!The City refuses to Resurrect Itself! I am writing this blog with a sense of personal loss and disappointment. Most of you have already seen the rioting and looting scenes that have transpired in Baltimore in the past few days. There is no need to belabor the point as why, where and what had happened. I really don’t care why thugs are looting and arson is flaring up all over the city. The reason is quite simple: decades ago, I was one of those business owners who had purchased some major property in the city of Baltimore. I came in as an entrepreneur from Washington D.C. who had been encouraged by then Governor Shaeffer to do business in the then run down city as a matter of opportunity and morality.

Clearly, morality and business opportunity are not similar. I did not go in to do any charity work in this city abandoned by big manufacturers/sports teams but by the time I left this municipality it was bereft of any business opportunities and clear civil society mandates. Watts, Ferguson, and now and then Baltimore, these cities have a self-destructive tendency in which the police were at best inadequate in their capacity; while at the same time, the citizenry was ready to explode at any given moment of discontent.

Like now, the mayor at the time was an African American, Schmoke, who had no idea of what he was doing; other than pronouncing platitudes about ‘working together’ and some nonsense about ‘opportunities’. Next came the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980’s where Baltimore and it’s white citizenry had been involved in all types of financial chicaneries that were eventually uncovered by the diligent work of the FBI. Needless to say, both blacks and white went to prison then. Baltimore’s history as a city has been part of vortex of white injustices and black despair.

Do I sanction either one?

Obviously not!However, incompetency has been the hallmark throughout the history of Baltimore as far as I can see; no matter who the governor, mayor or police chiefs were. There is a tendency, like the Federal Government, to bloat out like a beached whale creating all types of state and city organizations with fancy initials, the meaning of which defies anyone’s concentration or interest. The bureaucracy grew while the city shrank in opportunities and people became dissatisfied with their status; whatever that might be. Those who could prosper moved out to Towson, Maryland in an aseptic community that bore no real relationship to Baltimore. Few decent people wanted to live in the heart of Baltimore.

There are many Baltimores located all over the United States. Eventually they will erupt into uncontrolled passions and fury that will be rationalized by all sorts of theories and explanations. As for me, the only explanation for Baltimore’s flagrant disregard for the law and its compulsive looting is the fact that is what the people of Baltimore do and want to do---loot! Be it in Savings and Loans or banks with fancy names or in street corners containing new CVS pharmacies! The times have come so that mulatto correspondents on TV explain why black compatriots are looting ad hominum. The truth is that this whole scenario is becoming tiresome and too familiar.

When martial law will one day be implemented, then we, Americans, will see the final chapters of the recent scenes we have seen in Baltimore. It’s only a matter of time before the U.S military declares martial law in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland…. And? The rest of the sentence depends on those who need to loot and burn in the name of ‘grievances’ and ‘injustice’. Those words will soon disappear from the vernacular of impatient custodians of the peace.

One more Baltimore in any other place will probably illuminate more clearly the concept of “Martial Law”. It’s just around the corner candy store that was looted yesterday in Baltimore, City. Taunt the police at your expense! But threaten the National Guard and all bets are off!

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The 7.8 Nepal Earthquake kills at least 5000.In 1994, this blogger was literally in the middle of the Infamous 6.6 Northridge Earthquake in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. It was terrifying! At the time, I was out in Hollywood consulting on an Oliver Stone film, starring Al Pacino. That night I went to sleep at the Vagabond Inn and at 4:30:55 A.M pacific coast time, I felt a huge vibration that shook the wooden framed lodging. For a moment, I cursed the large trucks that were driving near by on the 405 Highway heading south into Los Angeles.

However, I quickly realized that the thunderous noise and the collapsing Inn were the beginning of a major earthquake. I did not stand in the doorway for protection as it is often prescribed. Instead, I ran out of the motel and went to the rented car, a large Cadillac, for which I had ‘mysteriously’ packed the night before. I say mysteriously because that was the first time in my professional life, I had not packed what little clothing I had just before I was to fly out at 11AM.

As I rushed out of the door, I encountered what I can best describe as a scene from Armageddon. The concrete beneath my feet cracked open in a wide yawn revealing flames and smoke spewing from the bowels of the pipes buried beneath the street. At the same time, live electrical wires from the overhanging telephone poles were whipping around the smoke-filled air.

I saw one police cruiser passing by with its searchlight beaming a bright light through the debilitating rancid smoke that quickly consumed what little oxygen was left. I rushed into my rented car, set on getting to the Los Angeles Airport at all cost, betting on one simple fact. I convinced myself that the different airlines which flew out of LA Airport would not leave their $40M planes on the tarmac. I had a first class ticket, I would board whichever plane that flew out of LA to whatever destination they would take; be it China or NYC.

It was extremely dangerous driving to the airport. First I drove in the middle of the 405 Freeway as I noticed lesser sized cars than my behemoth Cadillac peeling off to the sides of the highway as the road started to buckle in front and behind me. I turned off the air conditioner because smoke from the burning buildings that I was passing had entered the air conditioning system. I was choking throughout the minutes or however long that trip took to get to Century Blvd which led to the Alamo Rental car then onto the LA Airport.

As I approached Century Blvd, I noticed a police barricade placed in front of the exit ramp. I decided that I would swerve around the barricade and try to get to Century Blvd and then Aviation Blvd at whatever cost; even if it meant I would enter a police chase or an arrest. I managed to swerve around the police barricade without injuring myself or any LA police and proceeded by rote to Century Blvd. Next, I turned onto Aviation Blvd and then into the Alamo which had, ironically, the only lights on in the entire LA block that I was traversing.

I asked the bus driver to get me to the airport ASAP. Of course, I gave him a significant tip; and finally I reached the United counter where the lovely lady informed me that I should head back to my hotel. I explained to her that I would not leave the airport and that I would pay extra for any United Flight that would take off any time soon.

As serendipity would have it, I boarded the next flight out of LA on First Class of an almost completely empty plane back to Washington D. C.---my original destination. When the attractive stewardess came up to me and asked me what I would have for breakfast as I watched the plane take off from a seemingly buckling tarmac, I replied “Champagne”. The rest of the five to six hours were a blur. But I know that I had never drunk as much Champagne in my life in one sitting.

Now that I see the horror of an earthquake in Nepal where thousands of victims have been killed, I whisper a few consoling words to myself and them, wishing them a speedy recovery. We take too much for granted when it comes to the equilibrium of our planet. We assume that the ground beneath our feet will always remain firm. We breath air that will always be only slightly polluted and not filled with noxious contaminants.

Most of all, we tend to live in places that beckon us to stay away; be it a fault line in a potential earthquake; or a combat zone in a war-weary mountainous region where no man has ever conquered man or nature. As so-called rational human beings we are completely irrational and self-delusional about our vested interest in remaining safe and healthy. We presume without reason that nature is compliant to our wishes because we can conquer the air by flying and the seas by sailing.

However, we cannot and will not subdue Mother Nature whenever her tectonic plates rub against each other at times we know not where or when. A bit more humility and respect is required when addressing the great forces of nature which we have mistakingly assumed we have tempered.

The earthquakes in Nepal and Northridge make me realize that the internet is not the only phenomena that binds me to the world. It is also the savage rumble of a destructive force in the past that makes the Nepalese my neighbors of today.

May their recovery be swift and without even more major damage; and may our need to destroy ourselves through war be submissive to our respect of Mother Nature.

Let me end with the words of the great Roman warrior/philosopher, Marcus Aurelius: “Life is a stranger’s sojourn, a night at an inn.”

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Obama’s Failed Drone Program Consistently Kills More Americans and Pakistani/Yemeni Innocent Victims!Time to Transfer the Entire Program from CIA to U.S. Military.

Get rid of the Agency of International Development [A.I.D] workers overseas---completely useless and exceedingly expensive, accomplishes little. Time has come to shut down the consistently ineffectual CIA and allow the U.S. military to work unhindered by civilian incompetency.

By now you have learned about the ‘accidental death’ of American A.I.D worker, Warren Weinstein of Rockville, MD, who was killed in the ‘fog of war’ by an American drone targeting supposed Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. The truth of the matter is a little bit more serious than this tale of an AID worker captured in 2011 working on a local water project for delivering fresh water to Pakistanis.

First of all, as usual, the Obama admin has no idea of how to conduct a major rescue operation or an effective war against terrorist bred and nurtured by our duplicitous ally, Pakistan. This country, thanks to completely ignorant assessments of how to stop terrorism there, received over $25B in aid and military assistance over the past decades. As expected, the corrupt military and civilian leaders of Pakistan purloined the money and kept on creating so-called “terrorist groups” for which we had so-called “convenient targets” to destroy.

This scenario reminds me of a world carnival where our CIA provides the necessary funds to already discredited ersatz nations like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen , et. al in order for the CIA and some U.S. military units [especially SOF] to play kinetic wack-a-mole. Yet the truth is far more brutally destructive. For some time now, we have been playing with completely dysfunctional units of the USG, the CIA and it’s direct cousin –the Agency For International Development [AID]. There is a pattern that we see over six decades where the CIA and its satellites have created cancerous wars in Viet Nam, Latin America and the Middle East. The CIA has become a life-threatening disease in the Republic.

In addition, the CIA’s direct cousin is another completely useless organization that doles out billions of dollars to intermediary companies usually located in Arlington Virginia, like J.E. Austin Associates [a ‘bullshit front’] which ‘hired’ the professional AID worker, Warren Weinstein. I don’ begrudge a man like Warren if he wants to run around the world and make believe that he is important by doing little insignificant projects in ghastly infested corners of poverty and decadence from East Asia to Pakistan. However, I will not grant him any status of nobility or integrity when in fact, I know that men and women like him do very little other than infuse their narcissism with the necessary adrenalin rush which allows them to become ‘natives’ of a multitude of corrupt, dysfunctional countries which provide this type of ‘action junkie’ with raison d’etre. When a presumed Jewish man like Weinstein wants to sacrifice his life in a most Islamic extremist country then that is his business.

Americans have no duty nor need to send these action junkies, like the Peace Corps or so-called ‘innocuous NGO’s’ overseas at taxpayer expense when in fact these collective groups do nothing more than provide useless cannon fodder for terrorists to capture and use as ‘bargaining chips’.

How do I know?For many years, these ‘action junkies’ have wandered overseas to seek new adventures and ‘esoteric experiences’ for personal reasons, refusing to use their presumed skills in our own country in places like Detroit or Appalachia. Is it more worthwhile to help Tanzanian children when our American children suffer from lack of nutrition and education? Are children in Pakistan or Africa more deserving than our American kids who live in poverty, don’t get enough to eat and cannot read?

It’s time to eliminate the CIA and transfer all of it’s supposed intelligence operations to the military or the Director of National Intelligence [DNI]. For the most part, the CIA only borrows military assets in the guise that they are covert and ‘secret’. Nonsense! In addition, its time to eliminate AID, the presumed front of the CIA, because it has wasted countless billions of dollars in ineffectual projects that have no impact other than allow the American action junkies [civilian and church sponsored] to assume an exotic patina.

Last but not least, please STOP the most embarrassing, ineffectual program of all: drones flown from Nevada 16,000 miles overseas. They create more civilian casualties and inspire more hatred from the Pakistani/Yemen citizens than any other program we could have created. Falling in love with our technology is indicative of a civilian leadership that has had no operational strategic experience nor tactical successes.

As I have said in the past, Obama is the contrived product of a historically dysfunctional CIA which continues to create more problems for the American Republic to the extent that it has become synonymous with the well known term—“Legacy of Ashes” !If we fail to learn from these reverberating lessons of needless deaths and incompetent intellectual/kinetic actions, then we, Americans, will be doomed to repeat our mistakes again until the Republic will be eviscerated of all meaning. Now, is the time to stop this childish nonsense before we are no longer a nation which can address its own internal problems for want of sufficient resources and intelligent, capable manpower.

We don’t need the CIA to send CIA operatives overseas under cover of A.I.D so that a CIA born POTUS , Obama, can order to kill these ‘humanitarian workers’ accidentally or intentionally… with no other than CIA drones.

Let me end this blog with a quote from the great French writer/philosopher, La Rochefoucauld:

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Legacy in Libya—A Failed State and Thousands of Dead Refugees!

Recent articles in the media portraying the horrendous deaths of African refugees transiting through Libya have once again placed a black stigmata upon Hillary’s non-existent legacy at the State Department. It is important in the world of national security to understand consequences of action or non-action. No country has better defined the limits of Hillary’s skills and intelligence than Libya. I am not talking about the well-versed narratives of Benghazi. Rather I am talking about the recent human tragedies multiplied into the thousands of ignominious episodes arising in different parts of Africa and resulting in illegal Libyan trading of refugees throughout the continent.

Without a central government of any authority, Libya has transmuted from a well-organized, even somewhat prosperous country under Colonel Qaddafi to one that has deteriorated into tribal conflicts marked by ancient blood feuds and a currency of transaction that considers dead or living refugees fleeing oppression or poverty into a monetary gain.

Hillary, along with the disingenuous, incompetent “Genocide-spouting” Ambassador Samantha Power and National Security Advisor Susan Rice were the main proponent of dislodging a tenured leader for reasons that were at best naïve, if not completely distorted. However, ignoble Gadaffi may have been, he did provide for a unified society where tribal blood feuds were transformed into a patronage system which effectively allowed him to maintain control over a vast desert and keep some modicum of viability in Libya. Now, we and the world can witness, once again, what happens when an U.S invasion into a country has led to countless deaths of all types of Africans fleeing their respective dysfunctional countries from Somalia, Nigeria to Libya itself. This also happened in Iraq, Afghanistan when again we were without legitimate interests other than the palaver of ‘we must get rid of despots.’

It is very easy to exert force and displace authoritarian leaders. It is much harder to think beforehand and exam the short and long term consequences of such an action. Hillary is known to be a certified ‘war hawk’ in the clearest sense of the word. Rather commit herself to the grueling intellectual /emotional examination of short and long term consequences of invading a country like Iraq and Libya, she reflexively kowtows to the neocon hysteria of war and more wars as evidence of American resolve and power. At the same time, many of the senior military officers who command our forces have always cautioned and tempered these civilian outcries for ‘action and more action’.

Over thirty years serving in national security, I have never met a competent senior military officer who urges war as a solution to economic/political conundrums. Usually, its those people who are ensconced in the national security apparatus that have urged military decapitation without really comprehending its direct and distant manifestations. However, inaction in the time of obvious mass slaughter is equally malfeasant.

Let me explain what I mean.

When the Hutus were about to slaughter the Tutsis with the help of the Chinese sending machetes and the French [Mitterand’s son] helping to gun down Tutsis, President Bill Clinton had sufficient warning to prevent this unconscionable slaughter of 800,000 innocent civilian victims. But he, under the direction of his wife, Hillary Clinton, refused to intercede in this eventual “African Genocide”. Either way, Hillary has shown herself to be inept in Foreign Policy by personal and professional disposition.

She is bereft of intellectual gravitas. What she does well is to create the appearance of a dutiful Wesleyan College student who listens and absorbs the lessons of history. Yet she is completely incapable of formulating any type of coherent strategy or tactics. It may be inborn disorder of intellectual perspicacity. Whatever the reason, she speaks articulately about all matters that appear to be serious. Then when the time comes to act effectively and decisively, she fails time and time again; as if she were some form of an ‘idiot savant’ who knows the facts but misunderstands the reality of what she did or did not do.

That is her problem. Now it is our problem.

America has to really probe in depth into Hillary’s palaver not to embarrass her personally but to exam carefully why she has consistently appeared like Zelig in the span of historical change; but when called to action, she fails for want of trying or understanding the political dynamics of her action and inactions. She has refused to really understand her historical failures. Instead she has surrounded herself with high priced sycophants who will reassure her like Voltaire’s Candide—‘that what she has done is for the best’.

Noise and process are Hillary’s strong suites. The rest is vacuous shell of misunderstandings and failed actions upon the mantle of history. She has proven herself without any effective reality testing to be a person without gift or talents except the one: to self-aggrandize and tolerate ad hominum abuses.

I do not decry her for being a woman, a politician or any other persona she might want to assume. What I am simply saying is that Hillary has played out her part in history and has like many who have never been held accountable, she has failed by all accounts.... and will continue to do so, if elected to anything more than Jeb Bush’s having awarded her some nonsensical recognition as “A Great American”.

BTW, Jeb can also fit comfortably within the skeleton of the politically spoiled idiot savant, [as do his other three brothers].

America, it’s time to demand new candidates and a new way of our maintaining our role as a Super Power in the 21st Century….other than brute force and military decapitations.

Our Republic deserves better and should strive to achieve it at all costs!

Monday, April 20, 2015

Robert Bates, 73 year old Volunteer Deputy Sheriff Accidentally Kills Eric Harris, 44 year old African American.Once again, the Bates name denotes murder as in the Hitchcock Horror Film, “Psycho.” Recently, reality has presumed the arrogance of superseding the whimsical fantasies of fiction and a screenwriter, like myself. ISIS defies the imagination of any aspiring Tom Clancy to predict that confluence of American ineptness and Sadam Hussein’s remnants of Sunni officers.

Similarly, the fact that a 73 year old white male without any previous history of intense criminal justice training can mistake a gun for a taser in the pursuit of a man really defies any line of reason or logic. How a man 73 years old is even allowed to carry a gun in the name of any local sheriff’s department is beyond even my expansive comprehension.

As someone who has worked with local law enforcers over thirty years, I would not even consider the possibility of asking to carry a gun and participate in a sting and arrest case. At best, I have approached my locale Miami Beach Police Department to try to help them understand ‘hostage negotiations’. I did that in my shorts on one sunny day in their lecture room. There would never have been any possibility for me to engage in any professional activity that in any way resembled the rigorous police work demanded of the Miami Beach Police Department. How Bates was able to be an active part of the Sheriff’s Department in Tulsa, Oklahoma is really egregious in every sense of the word.

There were intimations that he had donated to the Sheriff’s election. Also there were anonymous suggestions that his records were falsified in terms of the necessary training that was required to fulfill this ersatz role which should have never existed in the first place. Clearly, Bates’s apology is neither sufficient or necessary. He has to serve time for what he did: manslaughter. In addition, the Sheriff and any other cohorts who were involved in granting the wannabe Wyatt Earp a badge to kill should be dismissed ASAP.

I have no pity for Bates or the Tulsa Police Department.

I believe in the Second Amendment and the right to carry guns. I am strongly opposed to allowing any civilians to accrue some sort of legitimacy, be it a policeman or even a judge, without having been a professional beforehand [whatever that would mean].

There are no part time victims who can be killed at will. Only in the Bates Motel does the perpetrator of his heinous crimes [Anthony Perkins] get away scot free. That is simply a horror movie. God forbid that Robert Bates is released from prison for his ‘accident’ then Alfred Hitchcock has really returned from the graveyard of filming those acts of horror that defy the imagination.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

For some time now, there has been a civil war wrapped within a regional conflict populated with internal ethnic strife—all occurring in one desolate place: Yemen!

Now, if I tried to explain the different factions involved in the chaos called, “The War in Yemen”, both you and I would be so confused that we would agree that it would be best if I did not attempt to even describe the real situation. In turn, I decided to extract that essence of this chaotic situation bordering on Saudi Arabia as a conflict between two sects of Islam trying to deny the other an opportunity to encroach on the mental territory of other.

More specifically, the wise old religious leaders of the Iranian Shi’ite Revolution want to embed their beliefs both geographically and intellectually into a failed nation state, Yemen, that borders Saudi Arabia, a Sunni faction of Islam with variations of a theme on Shi’ite philosophy. Now a young Saudi Prince [all names withheld in the interest of clarity] refuses to allow this old Shi’ite interloper to tread on his territory with his gunslingers, the Shi’ite proxy fighters. This young Saudi “whipper-snapper” has amassed his troops, guns and artillery with the help of the US Cavalry in order to stop the old man and his gunslingers.

As many of you already know, gun fights over different territories and beliefs was an integral part of establishing the Republic of America. When it was convenient, we sent out our Buffalo Soldiers to slaughter indigenous natives in order to annex more property to the west and south of the growing American territories. Our philosophy was simple. If it moved we killed it. If it did not move we buried it. This is how we became a nation of God Fearing people.

How the gun and God came to be the symbol of our Republic is steeped in legends, fairy tales and mainly history books [which were the equivalent of fiction]. Now, we see the rise of guns and God once again. However, this time, we made certain that the confluence of these two disparate elements did not encroach in our own territories. Instead, we described the confluence of these two factors as part of the world wide war on terrorism [which by definition was and still is an oxymoron]. Nevertheless, Americans made certain to fight alongside the old Iranian gunman in Iraq [another failed state which we helped to demolish with God and gun]; and, at the same time, we allied with the young Saudi to fight the old man in another territory [also failed state]—Yemen.

Americans have become the most pervasive gunslingers around the world trying to shoot our way into the hearts and minds of foreigners without having the vaguest idea of how to stop these inane series of Gunfights at the OK Corral. In reality, we are confused and completely disoriented by any sense of purpose, goal or ability to extricate ourselves from endless battles in very far-away places. Our leaders have fled south to Panama and Cuba to find some respite from the daily conundrum they had created but do not know how to extricate themselves from. Instead they offer us, the palaver of “God”, “National Security” and “Freedom’ as token efforts to ease our queasy questioning concerning death and mayhem in territories that we didn’t know even existed.

Until that day when “God” and “gun’ are no longer associated with each other, I then offer you the simple lesson of the Gunfight at the O.K Corral. The fight lasted only 30 seconds and took place at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory--- everyone was shot or killed eventually. There were no winners; only losers. Yet the world of fiction blossomed with narratives that have distorted this episode beyond any semblance of reality.

Let us pray that the conflict in Yemen be terminated as quickly as possible with the help of the USG, UN and the Gulf States. In time, they will all realize that the true value of the conflict will lie not in the reality of its horror and mayhem; but in the tales of fictitious heroism and virtue that will be elaborated accordingly by both the Sunni and Shi’ites who have need for more conflicts in order to maintain their conflicting narratives of “God” and his Prophet Mohammed.

As for me, I will watch more movies in order to drown out the noisy pleas for peace made by all and listened by none, in order to better understand who is really the ‘good guys’ and who are the ‘bad guys’. Truthfully, I am still confused. Only the word, “Vendetta”, seems to scream in my ear.

Maybe I have been watching reruns of “Gunfight at the OK Corral” too many times. It’s time to find God somewhere in this smoke-ridden world of gunpowder and rotting flesh.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Six Years After President Obama Reached Out to Iran, He Made a Historic Deal!Congratulations to Obama, John Kerry, State Dept. Team, Military/Intelligence Community.
Historic Day for America/Hysterical Day for Bibi and Republican ChickenHawks!

For over 37 years, I have waited for this rapprochement with Iran. I knew that Obama would eventually reach it with this country. Obama had taken the initial risk as did Nixon with his unexpected shift to recognize China. Silent leaders make bold movements. Loud leaders or histrionic leaders like Bibi and McCain do nothing but create unnecessary wars which slaughter countless innocent victims. Neither of these men will go down in history for anything more than ‘saber rattling’ ad infinitum.

Obama understood that Iran has been helpful to the US ground troops both in Iraq and Afghanistan by extricating them from a very dangerous, complex situation. Our military leaders had informed me for years that this was the case.

However, the Iran deal is important suis generis. For the most part, it really has nothing to do with nuclear capabilities. Iran really does not want a nuclear bomb. It is totally useless. Please ask the Pakistani leadership, both civilian and military, whether their having the Islamic Bomb in any way curtailed their corrupt political, incendiary practices in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India? Funny how Bibi never brings up Nuclear Pakistan when he rants about the dangerous of a Nuclear Islamic State. That’s because neither he nor the IDF care about nuclear capability.

As for Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni states, they have failed to maintain a civil society based on secular laws and transparent economic incentives. Instead of coming to terms with Iran, a very powerful Persian state, Saudi Arabia has decided to act out like a spoiled brat in kindergarten who has not been able to get the continuous attention of their surrogate father, America. For too long, Americans have tolerated Saudi Arabia’s nonsensical religious interpretation of the Holy Koran with narratives that emphasized the religious extremism and barbarism of a tribal sect, the Wahabbis.

Now times have changed. Obama along with his negotiating team understood that inevitable transformation where America no longer would pamper the spoiled oil drenched hooligans of the Middle East—Dubai, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and their poorer cohorts Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, etc.

Obama and Iran have signaled to the world that trade will once again travel through the Silk Roads of China, Russia and Iran in a vast infrastructure yet to be built by the different private corporations that will be bidding for the necessary contracts. New enterprises will arise where once sands and ruins have stood. Once again, our corporations—Bechtel, Boeing, Northrup Grumann, and Halliburton will descend into Persia and start up much needed businesses. Persian students will continue to flood our universities in the USA as they have had in the past and become the new leaders of a different type of democracy in Iran.

Germany, France, Russia and China will have the advantage of doing trade with the Iranians on a real competitive basis without fear of legal sanctions. Even the sneaky state of Israel who supplied the Ayatollah Khomeini with arms, guns, pilots, fighter jets and artillery shells [in Hebrew] during the 1989 Iran/Iraq Wars will make their necessary shekels without having to transfer goods to a third country as they have in the past four decades [especially gas/oil/ telecommunications equipment/ military assistance, etc].

Finally, the Middle East hypocrisy of long-abiding allies: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Dubai, etc. will be attenuated for real détente without pretext that that those countries really need us for more than military hardware and assistance. Iran will dominate the Middle East Crescent as I have predicted for years. They will effectively displace the Sunnis and try to maintain a hegemony akin to what they had during the times of Cyrus the Great and Darius.

The only fly in this seemingly halcyon ointment is Turkey which for the present is completely besieged on all of its major geopolitical borders. But its Prime Minister, Erdogan, can no longer bluff his way forward. He will have to declare whether Turkey is a secular or religious state. Did Ataturk fail in the long run? Or did Sunni Islam rise again? Either way, Erdogan will have to deal with a Shi’ite Persia. He knows that and he has no choice.

As for America, we are in very good shape. Obama has corrected our financial markets so that we are no longer in a recession or economic abyss a la Bush Family. Obama has made us as of the past year, a net exporter of gas/oil. Obama has recognized Communist Cuba. And finally Obama has made peace with a three scores and seven year enemy: Iran. Even Stupid Republicans who want to destroy/diminish Obama’s accomplishments by inviting American trained con man Bibi to speak in front of congress, can’t stop the momentum.

As for me, as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Navy Captain, I resigned over President Carter’s orders in 1978 to accompany Ramsey Clark to visit Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris. At the time, I believed this opening movement would cause the USA major problems. So I left. Sec. State Cyrus Vance resigned six months later. How would I know then that it would take five different Presidencies to finally accomplish what we should have done back in 1978----make peace with Ayatollah Khomeni?Congratulations to all those members of this incredible American and Persian team that made this deal possible. The American people are no fools and we will not let anything stop this treaty from finally being ratified in June 2015.

As we say in Persian, “Merci”!

As we say in Harlem, “Don’t Mess With The Man!” as a warning that should be heeded by all who think that they can spoil this deal. Just ask Petraeus, Hillary, Republicans and others what happens when you do.Criticism of this deal is pretty much like worthless Book Reviews:

“Book Reviewers [critics] are little old ladies of both sexes.” John O’Hara [American Novelist].

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About Me

Dr. Steve Pieczenik is a critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators. His novels are based on his twenty years experience in resolving international crises for five U.S. administrations.